**6. Acknowledgement**

322 Biogas

poor linkages among the various stakeholders concerned in energy for rural development (Habtetsion and Tsighe, 2002). Progressive government intervention is needed to shift reform process towards a more responsible development path of renewable energy (Wamukonya, 2004). Generally speaking, the database for the context of renewable energy in Tanzania is not well documented and the renewable energy technology including biogas is still at an infant stages. So many efforts have been done by individuals of which, most of them have not been documented. The financial capital coupled with poor technology (Mwerangi, 2008) and lack of sustainable institutional framework for renewable energy developments hinders the development of biogas. This trend tallies with Uddin (1999) comment that lack of policy mechanisms, institutional development and financing exist as

Another policy issues is lack of credits. A high proportion of the respondents in this study area indicated high cost and that there were no credit facilities in the area of study. There is also an issue of awareness and culture. A study by Mwakaje (2005) show that a large number of people who have not accessed biogas technology especially from the Muslim community have a perception that biogas is a dirty thing. However, being close to Lomwe Secondary School in Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania and observing physically the functioning of biolatrine, many neighbour households including the Muslims were motivated to adopt the technology. The challenge was the amount of waste to feed the biodigestor and of course the cost to incur. Improving credit accessibility may have significant impact on biogas adoption in Rungwe district and Tanzania at large. Factors influencing socio-political and community acceptance are increasingly recognized as being important for understanding the apparent contradictions between general public support for renewable energy

innovation and the difficult realization of specific projects (Wüstenhagen et al., 2007).

Despite the over 60 years of biogas promotion in Tanzania the technology has not well developed in Rungwe district to date. This study revealed a number of issues that led to the stagnation of the technology. One, energy policy framework has put low profile of biogas in the rural energy development strategies. The technology has been dumped in the cluster of renewable energy which basically concentrates on major types of energy such as biomass (liquid biofuel and fuelwood). Today, there is a lack of adequate indigenous capacity to design, manufacture, market and distribute as well as install and maintain biogas technologies. Two, the cost of installing biogas facility of USD 550-675 is high for many of the rural poor to afford. Three, there is a tendency of risk averse among the poor to adopt new technologies including biogas. Demonstrating the technology and its related benefits might change the pace of adoption. Four, there is also an issue related to water availability. Where water is far from home creates another burden especially for women who at the end of the day they have to choose between running the biogas facilities or producing food for the family, definitely the latter will prevail. Five, the poor performance of milk marketing is linked with poor government policies, low level of management, inadequate milk markets and difficulties arising from the predominance of direct marketing (Kisusu et al., 2000. Other constraints facing dairy producers include lack of improved technology at farm level and weak institutional support (Somda et al., 2004) small size of farms and their distance from

major barriers for Thailand

**5. Conclusion and recommendations** 

The author would like to thank the Research on Poverty Alleviation (REPOA) for funding this study, without their support this work could have not been accomplished. The University of Dar es Salaam is appreciated for granting permission to undertake this study. Furthermore, thanks should go to the district authorities for facilitating this study. Last and not least, the author is grateful to the farmers for their patience and participating in this research interviews.
